


Wait for Me

by RavenAurelieChoiseau



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Affection, Anal Sex, Angst, Come Eating, Come Shot, Declarations Of Love, Difficult Decisions, Except for Tully not being bad canon traits stick, Feelings, Fever, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Jobs, Headaches & Migraines, Hugs, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kissing, Light Angst, Light Smut, M/M, Masturbation, Memories, Men Crying, Missing Loved Ones, Non-Canon Relationship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Prison, Prison Sex, Protectiveness, Rough Kissing, Sacrifices, Sad, Sex, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tully is good, Tully isn't really a Nazi, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Ultimate Love, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, spoilers for the finale, transactions in prison
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2020-04-23 13:13:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19151728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenAurelieChoiseau/pseuds/RavenAurelieChoiseau
Summary: Juice and Tully have been a couple for months, since Tully saved Juice's life in Stockton. They've settled into a routine until one day Chibs comes to visit Juice unexpectedly, throwing balance into chaos.Chibs has news that will change Juice's life forever.





	1. The Holding

**Author's Note:**

> This is canon compliant as far as the characters' main traits go, but Ron and Juice's relationship is obviously not. There was never a rape. And Ron Tully isn't bad, that's the one difference. These two just fell for one another when they first starting doing favors for each other through the MC.  
> I think both these guys deserve a shot and I don't think Tully is inherently evil, so here I made him a rather wonderful human being  
> Otherwise enjoy!  
> Chibs comes in in Chapter 2 so stay tuned. And that's where things may take a turn.

“Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,  
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,  
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,  
Still, still to hear (his) tender-taken breath,  
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.”  
  
-  
  
Juice sits with his back to the pitted concrete, arms wrapped around his knees. He feels warm, except for the cool spot on his skull where his head is tipping against the rough wall.   
Cement. Cold and unyielding.  
Everything in this prison is cold, he muses. If it weren’t for his fever, he’d be shivering right now. Nothing touched nor seen in this place is warm or inviting.  
  
Not the metal bars, paint worn off where countless desperate hands have gripped over the years. Who knows what pleas and prayers passed those impatient lips?  
Not the steel toilets. Chill sharp against bare skin. Seatless. Purposely made to discomfort.  
Certainly not the unforgiving bunks, mere mortuary slabs covered with scratchy blankets. A precursor to where these bodies will all end up.    
Mr. Mayhem spares no one.  
  
The coldest things of all are the people. Juice has tired of watching his back. The guards… the inmates. Their icy stares are stark reminders that everyone in here is forsaken.  
There are no saints in Stockton. Paradise has long been lost.    
God turned his back on this place a long time ago.  
  
*  
  
Juice blinks back hot tears. He wipes the ones that escape on his forearm.  
Shit. He can't afford to get emotional now.   
Shutting his eyes tight, he inhales.  
Air is a luxury. Often he forgets to breathe.  
A shadow mars his face. The ghost is one of Christmas past. He misses his brothers. He misses their enthusiastic hugs and tender gazes. He misses being a part of something… of a family.  
Here? All he’s got is Tully. Without him he’d be dead already. He knows that and he’s grateful.  
The MC… all that’s ancient history. He made sure to burn all those bridges and then fucking burn the ashes, too. Juice is certain they’ve all forgotten about him now. Even Chibs.  
  
Chibs. That stings most. Makes something in his chest clench. He still loves him. Chibs is the one he’ll be thinking about on his death bed, if he’s not shanked in here first.  
“Chigger was here” is etched into the grimy surface by his head and through a fit of tears, for just a fleeting moment, he reads it as “Chibs was here.”    
His finger reaches and traces over it. As if, were it true, it would let him feel close to Filip again.  
Instead, reality crawls back.  
It’s just one of the numerous messages left there. Grafitti of the broken and the damned, just like Juice.  
He scratches in “J+C.” Names carved in middle-school fashion even though they mean nothing.  
Once, a long time ago, this love was real.

*  
  
Jesus… how long has he been sitting here?  
Juice wonders what time it is, asks himself how much more he’ll have to wait. He hates being alone.  
Alone is when the voices come. His demons. They don’t knock, they just waltz right in.  
Louder at night. Muted in the day.  
Juice wishes Ron would get here already.  
  
The bulb above is sizzling and it’s getting on his last nerve. A sharp pain grates his jaw and makes him wince. His face is throbbing and there’s a low hum in his left ear. Juice reaches up to touch it, gently rubbing the lobe. That’s where that fucker Santiago landed his first blow.  
  
A roach scurries across the floor. Juice watches it disappear into the cracked cement, one big toe digging impatiently into the blanket at his feet.  
“And I’m still sitting here,” he says aloud.  
Somewhere above his head a toilet flushes and it catches his attention. He wonders if someone is sending kites through the tubes again.  
Prison love. Shit. Hastily scribbled declarations of love folded like bad origami. Emotions born of boredom or desperation or quite simply a need to feel wanted…wrapped in travel-sized plastic squares sent through shit-stained plumbing. A fecal love line of sorts.  
Let’s say that’s where the romanticism dies, (if any can be had at all in an austere six by eight prison cell).  
  
Juice exhales deeply in relief when he sees the guard’s shadow dapple the floor. Finally.  
His breath catches a second later as Tully crosses the threshold and smiles at him warmly.   
Juice’s heart stutters. Speaking of prison romance…  
Tully swivels in place as the door is pulled. His charcoal stare lingers.   
“Thank you for the pleasant conversation on the way over, Officer Waters.” The corner of Tully’s mouth curls into a smirk.  
“I didn’t say shit, Tully.” Fingers looped into his belt, the guard rolls back and forth on the balls of his feet.  
“Precisely.”  
“Keep being a smartass, Tully.” Waters shoots him a dirty look as he paces off.  
  
Tully shakes his head. “That man doesn’t understand jest.”  
Metal, sweat, and resignation. That’s what’s in the air when Juice remembers to breathe again. The lock snaps into place as soon as the guard’s steps echo away.   
“Hey baby.” Tully’s pale skin flushes pink when Juice grins back at him. He’s missed his little boricua.  
“Hey there. How much time do we have?” Juice enquires softly, his lashes fluttering. He wants to make the most of it before he goes back to his horrible cell.  
  
Tully’s looking more rested, Juice notices immediately. When he saw him three nights ago his face was drawn, fatigued. This means he must have changed roommates. Juice remembers him talking about having lost at Cellmate Lottery. Some freak who never slept and talked to himself had been placed with him when Tully’s old cellie got put in AdSeg indefinitely.  
With the clout Tully has in Stockton, it wasn’t even a week before the guy was transferred out.   
  
Ron walks the three steps to the bed and immediately tilts his face, regarding his lover quizzically.   
“Juice?”  
Tully clasps his palm over Juice’s knee, head bowed to study him with a critical squint. Juice looks up with effort, as if a string were being pulled slowly from above to raise his chin.  
“Hmm?” he mumbles as if he didn’t hear him.  
The bruise on Juice’s cheekbone and the finger marks on his neck don’t go unnoticed.  
  
One mauve circle.  
5 indigo fingerprints.  
One pissed off boyfriend.  
Tully’s enormous hands drop to his sides, fists clenched. He doesn’t like this at all.  
“Who did this, sweetheart?” he asks through gritted teeth.   
  
You can’t hide anything in jail. Unsheltered under melancholy recessed lighting, this place will lay you bare. Physically and emotionally.  
“I’m sorry.” Juice squares his sagged shoulders, straightening himself. “I’m a little under the weather… but I’m okay, Ron. I’m okay.”   
Juice motions to hook his thumbs into the waistband of his pants when Tully stays his hand. Not only does he look beaten, he’s balmy to the touch.   
The flat of Ron’s palm reaches out and rests on his forehead, like a father’s would. As Tully suspects, Juice is feverish. A dark, worried gaze penetrates the boy.  
“I don’t like repeating myself, Juice. Who did this to you, baby?”  
  
Nobody messes with his Juice. _Nobody_. If it’s not the first thing you learn when you come to prison, it’s the second. You don’t fuck with a man’s property  _and you don’t fuck with his bitch_. Everyone in Stockton knows Juice belongs to Tully. He’s untouchable.  
  
Juice wilts like a tulip. Tully sits down next to him, the thin mattress shifting with the movement. Ron drapes his arm across Juice’s shaky legs.   
“So?” Ron whispers.  
A door buzzer goes off somewhere and Juice starts. Tully squeezes his thigh.   
Nerves and electricity permeate the air.  
“Sugar… relax. What the fuck happened?”   
Juice shivers. He blinks once and smiles faintly. There’s no use keeping anything from Tully.  
“This morning before breakfast.”  
Two fingers catch Juice’s chin, forcing his face to his. Tully touches Juice’s lower lip lightly with his thumb, eyes darting from there to his chocolate orbs.  
The flesh there is plump. Pliant. Tully wants to claim him again but there’s something more pressing at hand.  
“I need a name.” An eyebrow raise means he demands an answer.   
  
Fuck, Juice thinks. He’s not gonna let this go.   
“The new cellie. Arrived yesterday. I guess I lost at Cellmate Lotto, too. He still doesn’t know what’s what. Wanted to steal my shit. Name’s Santiago Diaz.”  
Ron nods. Slowly. As if it pains him to do so. This is one of his signature “I will sit here quietly and compartmentalize my anger” nods.  
Perhaps the most frightening color on Ron Tully is silent fury.  
  
“I see.” It’s said in a flat tone. Tully never raises his voice.  
Juice squirms in his spot, drawing closer. He brushes his arm.  
Brown on white.  
Scalding silk over tepid velvet.  
  
“Baby, it’s fine. I’m okay.”  
Their fingers intertwine, but it doesn’t ease the rage. Ron’s nostrils flare and he sucks in air through his teeth.  
He needs to know. Know if Juice has been… violated.  
“Did he defile you, Juice?”  
Juice immediately shakes his head. Vehemently. He squeezes Tully’s hand in reassurance.  
“No, baby. No. Just roughed me up. I fought back. He’s not gonna try this again.”  
There’s silence. The back of Tully’s hand moves lightly up Juice’s cheek until his fingertips reach the purplish bruise. Juice leans into the touch.

“Listen to me,” Ron says, emphasizing each of the last words. “He’s not going to try this again because _that fucker’s dead_.”  
Juice can’t help but smile at how protective Tully has become. Outside their private time, to the prison population, he’s just Tully’s toy. That’s what the shot caller for the AB needs everyone to believe to save face.  
I’m a skinhead.  
I’m a racist.  
I’m fucking a brown because it’s my right as white.  
  
It’s all bullshit. Once the guards leave, once they’re alone… Tully proves to him just how much he cares with even the smallest of loving gestures.  
“You don’t have to kill him. Just get him the fuck out of my cell. Please.”  
Tully nods, his breath fanning his face. He takes Juice’s lips in a soft, moist kiss. Juice tucks under him and Tully’s chin nudges the top of Juice’s head. Juice’s arms fall open.  
Willing.  
Waiting.  
He finds himself enveloped in a protective embrace immediately.  
“I’ll take care of it, sweetheart. If there’s one thing I despise is disrespect. Shit like this is so out of pocket. People need to be taught lessons.”  
A butterfly play of his fingers gives Juice goosebumps. Juice’s hand steals down to Ron’s thigh.  
“So do you wanna… ?” he asks shyly.  
  
Ron does. Of course he does. But he’s not an asshole. Juice is anxious and he’s clearly not feeling well. He can take care of himself later. It’s Juice that needs to relax now.  
“We don’t have to do anything today, baby. You’re sick.”  
Juice straightens in protest. “What? No… I’m fine.”  
He’s not, but he’s missed Ron. He’s testy and needs release. Needs to be touched. Craves him.  
Blacklisted in Stockton for being a rat, he has no friends. No allies. No one except for the least likely person to show him any affection: Ron Tully.  
“Baby, you’re burning up. No. I’ll take care of myself later. You, however, need to relax. Lie back. Let me take care of you.”  
“Ron, you don’t have to. Just stay with me. _Hold me_. That’s enough.”  
“ _Juan Carlos Ortiz._ Will you do what you’re told for once? Lie back against me.” His name is a punctuation.  
This is an order. Not a request.  
  
Ron rarely calls him that. Juice’s cheeks flush warm red.  
There’s a blink. Round eyes the color of coffee crinkle.  “Okay.”  
Ron’s strong arms wrap further around Juice, who’s pressed into him now from the back. Tully’s hand sears a path down Juice’s abdomen and beneath his pants. His cock stands at attention.  
  
“Just relax, sweetheart,” Tully whispers to him and Juice sighs.  
The flushed, swollen dick fits perfectly in Ron’s grip. Nothing he hasn’t done before, but today he feels it.  
Juice needs this. He needs a little pampering.  
He drags the skin up languidly up to the head. The foreskin covers the deep glans, shiny with arousal.  
“Mmm,” Juice hums, chest rumbling.  
“That’s it baby. That’s it. Relax for me.”  
Ron thumbs the slit on the upstroke, the skin scalding to the touch. Juice’s hips deliver a small jerk.  
“You like that?” Ron murmurs.  
“Yeah,” Juice breathes. “Don’t stop.”

The vein pulses against Tully’s rough palm, the stroking controlled though the rhythm is disjointed. It feels wonderful… to be in Tully’s comforting hold… to feel desired. He always feels so safe with Tully. He just wishes they could be cellmates. It’d make his time here go by that much faster.  
  
Tully drags the rough of his beard against Juice’s cheek.  
“This okay?” he asks, though he knows it is. He can tell by the way Juice’s eyelids are fluttering and his thighs twitch.  
Fingers fanned wide apart, Tully increases the pace to quick tugs, driving all the breathable air from Juice’s body.  
“Fuck…Ron… “  
Ron’s bleeding pre-cum himself, cock throbbing against Juice’s ass cheeks… but today isn’t about him. He wants to know that Juice feels cared for and loved. He’s been having a hard time of late and whatever Ron can do…  
Because yeah, in their own twisted way they love each other. Ron has never told him as much, but if he asked him directly, he’d tell him. He would admit it. This kid got under his skin almost immediately.  
"We’re all lonely in here," Tully had said when he caught himself thinking about Juice a little too often.    
  
The sensation of alternating nips and licks against the salty flesh of Juice’s neck is pushing him to his limit. He’s close. He bites into his lip until it throbs like his pulse.  
“Ron… I… “ he can barely make out the words. The rise and the heat and it’s all he can do not to scream…  
  
Tully knows. He holds him fast. A moment later Juice’s sex jerks.  
“Ron… fuck… Ron,” Juice hiccups, the blanket bunched between curled fingers.  
Tully’s fist milks near the top in easy strokes until Juice empties himself completely. Wet over his fingers, dripping onto the crumpled sheet beneath.  
The younger melts into him, all his muscles slack.  
  
He loves seeing Juice satisfied. The flush to his dark skin and those slick lips calling his name.  
Fuck.  
Tully leaves a kiss on his tribal tattoo, nuzzling his nose into the soft spot behind his earlobe.  
“Better baby?”  
“Yes. Thank you.” Juice raises Ron’s hand to his tongue and licks the fingers clean. Stops on his index and middle digits, lightly sucking. He doesn’t even see the swastikas tattooed there anymore. They’re not who Tully really is.  
Ron sibilates something. Juice simpers. Angles his head up to see his reaction.  
“Are you sure you don’t want me to?” Juice offers.  
Tully’s about to explode. Honestly on the cusp. But Juice is incandescent. He’s not well.  
“Just kiss me, Juice.”  
Juice willingly obliges.  
  
Four lips wrangle, their bodies craving acts of dubious morality. Juice sneaks a hand. Wants to help.  
Ron shies it away, bringing it to rake in his hair instead.  
One hand carding, the other around Tully’s neck. Juice allows Ron to take care of himself, his hand thrusting in time to their tongues’ explorations.  
Tully’s scratchy voice begs against Juice’s carotid.  
“Make me feel wanted, Juice. _Please say it_.”  
Oh god.  
Juice explores, fingers gliding down Tully’s neck to the small of his back where he desperately kneads into the tense muscle.  
He pulls.  
Pulls again.  
They share the same exhale.  
  
Juice laments Tully’s shirt and so he lifts it up and over his arm.  
“I want you, Ron,” he whispers.  
With that, Tully disintegrates.  
“Juice. Juice… _I love you.”_  
The kissing that follows is as violent as Ron’s movements.  
  
Tully comes with a low groan. Liquid heat in multiple jets. He shudders, trembling into his lover. Now _he’s_ the one who needs reassurance.  
His spend perfumes of something sweet, their stomachs rising and falling. Two men covered in cum, perspiration, and a hint of guilt.  
  
Immediately after Ron realizes what he said, he sighs into him. Flesh to scalding flesh.  
Juice doesn’t look flustered at all. Ron ironically doesn’t regret it. To be honest, he feels relieved.   
This dangerous and foolhardy indulgence between them at least now holds a new meaning.  
  
A pensive shimmer in the shadow of his eyes, Juice gathers courage. “You love me? I’m not just your bitch?”  
Tully observes him with a softened, musing look. Almost hurt at the insinuation.   
“Sweetheart, when have you ever been my bitch?! I… I feel like a different person when I’m with you. A better person. You make me want to be a better man, Juice. No one’s ever evoked that feeling in me.”  
Juice doesn’t know if he loves Tully or not. He still loves Chibs even though his gut tells him Filip has buried him in the cemetery of his heart. He was his soul mate.  
Still, Juice also can’t deny… he cares for Tully deeply. Ron protects him, looks out for him. Is nothing but tender and kind. Juice misses him when he's not around, and he wants of his touch. So how can he say he doesn’t have feelings for him?  
  
AB meets SAMCRO. A half-black, half-Puerto Rican makes Ron fucking Tully fall in love with him while the other pines for his attentions.  
Jesus Fuck.  
Stranger things have happened in prison.  
  
Juice advances. There’s a whisper-light contact of their lips. Chaste. As if declaring love made things scramble back to first base.  
“I care for you, Ron. Deeply.” That’s the best Juice’s confused heart can muster at the moment.  
It’s good enough for Tully. He understands.  
“Your brothers may have given up on you, sweetheart. But I haven’t. I’m here. As long as I’m alive in this place no one will ever lay a hand on you again. Do you understand? I love you. I’ll tell you every single time you need to hear it because you’ve become my salvation.”  
  
Juice tears up... opens his mouth to answer, but the clang of a door interrupts them. Both men adjust their clothing in haste, Juice wiping away the cum from the mattress with the already filthy blanket.  
  
Waters steps into view, signalling for the doors to open.  
“Gentlemen. Your little love fest is over. Tully, your lawyer’s here. Ortiz, you’ve got a visitor.”  
Tully’s eyebrows furrow, jaw clenched.  
“I paid you for an hour, Waters. I expect an hour. My lawyer can wait. He’s on retainer.”  
  
The guard shrugs, hand on his cuffs. “Are you going to come willingly, Tully? Or do I need to cuff your Nazi ass?”  
Ron doesn’t react. Even a crooked officer can be a dick and he needs this guy if next time he wants to get the conjugal room.  
“I have to be honest, Richard. I’m not pleased with the accoutrements in this facility. Next time you get 400 hundred more. I want the conjugal rooms once a week. Also, Ortiz has a fever. As soon as he's done with visitation he needs to go to infirmary.”  
Waters chuckles. “What? Your Puerto Rican girlfriend got the flu? Oh and yeah... I’ll be sure to put that conjugal request in, Tully. Until I see the cash this is what you get. Now move your skinhead ass.”  
  
Juice looks completely alarmed. His mind is reeling. Between the fever and the hope that...   
“Who is it? I don’t get visitors. I have no one. Who wants to see me?”  
Waters shuffles them out. “What do I look like, your personal assistant, Ortiz? The sheet said  
Filip Telford. That’s all I know.”  
Juice nearly falls over. One hand splays on the wall for support, his blood soaring with unbidden memories.  
“Chibs? Chibs is here to see me?”  
  
Ron pales, at the base of his throat a pulse beating and swelling as though his heart has risen from its usual place. 


	2. Follow the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juice and Chibs reunite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoliers if you haven't finished the series.

Ron and Juice step out into the grimy hallway, hands clasped behind their backs. Heads lowered, they watch their feet step one after the other. Juice first, Ron following.   
The small-framed guard closes at the back, one thumb hooked into his belt.  
“You boys behave so I don’t have to cuff you,” Waters orders.  
Neither man is paying attention, though, if not to their own thundering hearts. The least of their thoughts right now is to stir up any trouble.  
  
Juice’s skull seems to shrink, oxygen fleeing his brain.   
_Filip wants to see me._  
_Filip wants to see me._  
His mind whirls faster than the spin cycle on a washer.  
_Why does Filip want to see me? After all this time? What happened? Is he… ? Does he still… ?_  
A million questions threaten the calm within him.   
  
Juice summons a deep breath and turns his head a fraction. Wants to make sure Ron is okay.   
He’s not.  
Tully is even paler than usual. Looks like someone has just walked over his grave.   
Their gazes catch.   
The burn of worry rips through Tully like a shank. He doesn’t want Juice to know exactly how much he’s shaking in his fucking boots… how hard his heart is thumping against his rib cage.   
  
Ron smiles weakly. He’d blow him a kiss if he could move his hands. Just to reassure him, Ron winks. No need to make the kid feel any worse, he’s sick and now he’s fucking distressed, too.   
Before they reach the doors that lead to the visitation hall, another guard appears, blocking their way.   
“Ortiz, with me,” he commands, a huge hand pointing to the double doors at the end of the corridor.   
Ron expected them both to be taken to visitation. _What the fuck is going on?_  
  
The new guard, watching them both with highlighted indifference, announces “Conjugal, Ortiz.”  
Tully flinches. Wait, WHAT?!   
“Conjugal?!” Juice’s spine jerks him upright.  
“What?” Ron whispers.  
Juice gets accompanied away by Officer Tate, whose frostbite blue eyes burn into him.  
“Move it, Ortiz. Not gonna tell you twice.”    
  
Stalling, Ron falters, just to get one more look at Juice. He has a foreboding feeling. A darkness creeps into his soul once again, snuffing out the light in his eyes… the light that Juice gifted him and is now taking away with each step he takes.  
Something tells him nothing will ever be the same again.  
  
“Conjugal?” he enquires of Waters, a tremble rocking his voice.   
“Did he stutter, Ron? What, apart from being racist you’re a homophobe, too? I wouldn’t have said so given your little visits with Ortiz.  _Domestic partner conjugal._  Been the law since 2007. You wouldn’t want the CDC to discriminate against the gays, would you?”  
Ron sways in place. There’s that tightness in his chest again, the sensation of air being sucked out of him like a deflating balloon.  
Fuck fucking FUCK!  
One of Ron’s fingers twitches in his own grip. It’s the trigger finger.  
“Wait, Telford is his domestic partner?”  
  
The guard’s had about enough. You can tell from the way his tongue sticks into the inside of his cheek and the deep furrow cuts into his dark brow.  
“What is wrong with you, Tully? Am I not speaking English? Did I not say I don’t know shit? The sheet said Filip Telford. It could say Jesus Fucking Christ for all I care. Now move your ass, I’m not gonna tell you again.”   
  
Tully works up one of those smiles the simpleminded get. There’s nothing he can do about the situation right now. He takes an involuntary step backwards, feeling like he’s going to die right on this spot. If nothing else, his heart is.  
Juice glances over his shoulder, just in time to read an “I love you” on Ron’s lips before he disappears into the gap of the steel doors.   
  
The knot in Juice’s throat thickens. Shaking his head, as if it’ll bring him some clarity through this fever-induced haze, he murmurs “I don’t understand.”  
Every neuron in him fires.  
The guard thinks the comment is meant for him. “What, don’t remember you’ve got a husband back home?”  
Tate nudges him into the first room on the right.  All the blood rushes from his body into his feet. Still incredulous, Juice just stands there with his hands at his sides, blindsided.  
“What?” he asks again faintly.  
“You deaf, Ortiz? I said conjugal. Wait here, go sit on the bed.”   
  
_  
  
The CDC doesn’t try very hard. The conjugal room isn’t much better than where he normally meets up with Tully, except there’s a real bed.  
At the click of the lock, Juice snaps out of his trance. Explores, needing to walk off his nervous energy.  
Poor lighting bends shadows, lending almost an ominous glow to the place. The one lamp on the nightstand fails completely at giving the room any sense of romanticism. It flickers on and off to boot, and that’s beginning to drive Juice crazy. Jesus, not even the sleaziest of motels is THIS sad.  
Hand on the hot bulb, Juice tries to screw it in better, thinking that might stop the annoying blinking.  
Of course, in a shitty place like this, nothing works right. The light continues to flit.  
Fuck it. He shuts it off.  
  
Once he’s arranged some magazines on the nearby table in order of size, Juice lets himself drop on the bed. Drawing a deep sigh, he waits as told.  
Chibs.  
Inhale. A gulp of air. The scent hits him immediately.  
Mold. Musk. An undertone of bleach and desperation. It’s almost nauseating.  
Honestly this place never stood a chance, Juice thinks. The bars on the windows and the guards babysitting kind of ruin the mood from the get-go. Perhaps it’s done on purpose?  
Dimness as a filter for all the suffering and wasted lives.  
  
_Where is he?_  
Death grips on his bouncy knees, the panic within him brings apnea. His breath catches and Juice blows out his first in a series of shallow breaths. Then a squeaky hinge and a familiar voice whips him back to attention.  
“Hey lad.”  
Juice bites down on his lower lip as soon as he sees Chibs fill the doorway.  
Jesus Christ.  
  
Nothing can describe the feeling of seeing him again. Nothing. But his first reaction is to swallow sour anger.  
He wants to be pissed at him. Needs to be. After all, Filip abandoned him… forgot about him. Fuck, even suggested he _kill himself._ Does he even know what Juice has been through in here? The pain and humiliation?! Feeling completely ALONE if not for the company of Ron Tully?!  
Tully. The thought enters his mind but leaves it just as quickly when Chibs takes a hesitant step towards him.  
A hand stretches out, long fingers shaky. An offering.  
“Lad?”  
  
Who’s Juice kidding? All it takes is one look. One fucking look from those expressive almond eyes, glistening with forgiveness and tenderness.  
“Filip…” Juice sibilates as he melts into a puddle on the floor.  
  
_He said my name. How long has it been?_  
Chibs’ posture goes limp. As if all his bones have dissolved, leaving him only his shell for support.  
Two fools in love and too proud, until now, to forgive each other.  
Even silence can carry absolution.  
  
“I… “ Filip thinks he says it but he doesn’t. Only his mouth has dropped open, but nothing but warm air comes out.  
Chibs’ chest rises and falls in rapid succession.  
Juice’s gaze pushes and pulls, muscles twitching as his nutmeg eyes blink furiously.  
Neither move, one hostage of the other. And then-  
  
Juice lunges forward. Chibs stumbles, crushing the boy to his breast, their mouths sealing immediately.  
Hard and searching, the kiss is a negotiation.  
Punishing and angry at first. Fists twisted into hair and cloth.  
Then the memory of all their bruising kisses comes back.  
  
The stolen ones, when they were still ashamed of who they were.  
The desperate ones, when the only thing they needed was each other.  
The longing ones, after weeks of being apart on assignments.  
All of them rage back, not like a flood but like a fucking hurricane.  Down to the forbidden grazes in dark alleys. And finally, their Sunday drives, just the two of them. They could kiss freely under the noon sun in the middle of forgotten fields.    
  
Christ. The ache.  
A demanding need makes their mouths soften, the probing of their tongues velvety and warm by the end.  
And there it is. As if nothing had ever transpired. Not even two minutes after seeing each other again, Chibs and Juice have hopelessly and helplessly abandoned themselves to their yearning once more.  
  
Oh god oh god! Juice’s mind screams as he clings to him desperately. His blood is a hot and rebellious liquor as it pumps in his veins, inebriating him.  
“Filip… I… I’m sorry… “ the words fall from swollen lips when they finally break, the tears hot in Juice’s shiny eyes.  
Arms solid and strong around him tighten further, reassuring. Chibs stifles his uneven breathing by holding Juice closer. The painful throbbing building in between his thighs competes with the one cinching his heart.  
“I’ve missed ye, Juicy. Christ I’ve missed ye.”   
Fuck. Juice hasn’t heard his nickname fall from that Scottish mouth in so long. So long!  
  
For a moment the world feels right again. Chibs is here. Holding him. Dropping kisses on the top of his head before a tender, lingering one claims him once more.  
It sings through them both, this new kiss. Hands with tickling fingers trail up and down their backs, bodies arching at the hips.  
Juice thinks he might have died and gone to heaven. He never thought he’d smell that fresh scent ever again, the one that perfumes Chibs’ hair. It’s like walking through a flower shop.  
Juxtaposed is Juice’s natural smell. Tickling Chibs’ nostrils with hints of gingerbread and icing and brown sugar. Just like his silky skin.  
Chibs wants nothing more than to lay him down on the bed and worship him. Fuck they are gone for each other!  
But this isn’t the right place. Everything here is poison. Their love deserves better because it’s pure.  
  
Juice soaks it in, Filip’s touch. It could be just like old times. If they close their eyes and forget where they are. If they forget what happened.  
If if if…  
But it isn’t. Not at all. So much blood… so much shit has happened since. With the MC… but also in here. Complicated doesn’t begin to cover it.  
And then there’s Tully. Fuck. Not even an hour ago Juice was kissing Tully… he was…  
He can’t. He has to stop letting the voices take over.  
It’s not fair, he’s here with Chibs now. Juice wills himself to put thoughts of Ron aside.  
  
“Juicy, are ye shakin’?”  
He is. He’s so overwhelmed all his limbs are jelly. The blush creeping up his neck carries with it a blinding rush of heat that’s only adding to his fever.  
“Let’s sit,” Chibs suggests, suddenly aware of the incandescence of his skin.  
They link arms and he’s lead to the bed, where they sit facing each other on a duvet of arguable cleanliness.  
A warm palm cups Juice’s cheek, and from under a furrowed brow Filip’s eyes squint.  
“Ye feel hot… and Christ is that a shiner?”  
His thumb fingers the purple splotch. It's more a cheek bruise. He can't help but notice the finger marks, too.   
  
Juice lets out a giggle. It’s not funny. Not in the least. But he’s so happy to see Filip it doesn’t matter.  
“New cellie. Don’t worry. And, I’ve got a fever today. But I’m okay. It’s all under control.”  _Tully’s got it under control, more to the point_.   
Chibs chokes back emotion. Pecks the spot where the bruise is forming. The things he’s been through.  
“Ye look thinner, Juicy.”   
He won’t ever tire of Filip saying that. Ever.  
  
“The food in here isn’t great, so… and I don’t get much commissary. My sister sends me some when she can. She writes me about twice a month which I guess is something given we didn’t talk for years. But you look good, Chibs. _Really good_.”   
Filip looks as striking as ever. Perhaps a little more silver in his mane and beard, and a wrinkle or two adding to the creasing of his eyes. Understandable when you’re shouldering the burden of the MC. But other than that, he’s still Juice’s black Scott, his dark angel. The love of his life.  
  
Filip returns his gaze lovingly. Like dollops of maple syrup in which Juice can see his reflection.  
“Why are you here, Chibs? Why now? Did the MC send you here to kill me? Because Christ I paid my debt- “  
Chibs’ face abandons color.  
“A’m na here to kill ye, kid. Christ.” Just the insinuation makes his heart lurch.  
There’s a noise outside, like metal scraping, and Juice starts.  
Filip’s large hands reach out and cradle Juice’s face. “Relax, Juicy. Relax. It’s all okay. A’m here to tell ye something important.”  
“Okay. I’m sorry this is just… unexpected. And… _conjugal?_ ”  
  
Filip cranes his head, letting one hand drop so their fingers can intertwine. “We’ve got a guy now. Doctored the paperwork. I know it’s putting ye at risk but I needed… I needed to see ye. Tell ye some things in person and nae from behind a fucking glass wall. This is too important.”  
“Everyone knows I’m AB’s bitch in here. Nobody’ll be surprised if a guy comes here for a conjugal, trust me.”  
_Maybe only Tully._    
  
A long, uncharacteristic silence ensues. Filips searches for something beyond Juice, on the dirty wall. What he wants to say, it’s a jumble of letters and emotions in his brain.  
Shit.  
Juice watches him with renewed interest. “Chibs, you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”  
Automatically his eyes flick in his direction.  
“Aye. I know. Look, I’m sorry, lad. I ken all the shite that went down… I ken… I needed time, lad. I needed time.”   
A gentle squeeze of his hand and Chibs relaxes his shoulders.  
“I don’t blame you, Filip. I don’t. I was just so sad… devastated, really. I thought I’d never see you again. I thought-“   
“That I hated ye?”  
“Yeah.” It’s a whimper.  
  
Caressing his warm cheek with his free hand, he smiles sadly. “How could I hate ye, lad? Christ Almighty. I was just pissed. So fuckin’ pissed at ye for being so stupid. SO STUBBORN.”  
Juice nods at first. Not trusting his voice. In fact, it takes him clearing his throat to answer.  
“I’m sorry. About everything. More than you’ll ever know.”  
“I know, Juicy. I know. Come ‘ere.”   
  
Meshed together as if the touch of flesh to flesh was a defense against insanity, they embrace once more. Juice has no desire to ever back out of Chibs’ arms, where he feels he should have always been. The warmth of Chibs’ flesh beneath his black shirt emanates as he presses further into him.  
“Ye better noo?”  
“I am,” Juice gulps. “I am.”  
“All right, listen. The first thing I have to tell ye, ye may have heard. Jackie Boy… Jackie,”  
A tremble tugs at his lips. The tears come even though it’s been months. They always come.  
“Jackie killed himself on the road. It was a mayhem vote. He wanted to go out like his old man. It was only fitting,” he sniffles, wiping the stray drops on his forearm.  
  
Fringed with long lashes, Juice fights back his own scalding tears. “I… I heard from Tully. I’m so sorry. What about the boys?”  
“There was a lot of death, Juice. We had to protect them. The boys are on the farm with Nero and Wendy. It’s for the best. We go visit them from time to time, just so they don’t forget who their uncles are. But… it’s best they dinnae ever come back to Charming.”  
“Yeah. Yeah.”  
  
There was no foreseeable way for the boys to remain, Juice knows that. Not after their mother and their father…  
“Are… the others okay?”  
A grim expression pales Chibs. “Gemma… Wayne… “ He can’t say it.  
Juice knows. There was no other way. “Jax?”  
Shaking his head, Chibs recovers himself with an effort. “Aye. You know- “  
“I know.”  
  
There’s no need to rehash history. Open old wounds. Filip keeps himself in check. Straightens his shoulders.  
“Lad, there’s another thing. Very important. Good news.”  
Juice perks up. “What?”  
“It’s complicated tae explain. But they’re looking at your case again. Some new evidence, a bought witness.  
Your lawyer will come tomorrow, he told me they’re considering giving you probation. Duress, heat of the moment… overpopulation of the prisons.“  
“What?” he asks with a tilt of the head, his amazement hidden by a slow breath. Did he hear right?  
“If they grant you parole, Juicy, you’ll come to live with me.”  
  
Juice’s jaw slackens. “Are you serious? How can this be I’m in here for-“  
The corners of Filip’s lips quirk into a light smile.  
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Juice. The only thing is… you won’t be able-“  
“I’ll never wear the patch again,” he answers himself solemnly.  
“No.” It’s as final as it sounds.  
  
It’s a miracle Juice is alive. It’ll be a miracle if he gets out. The patch? Would have been asking for too much.  
“I mean I can’t believe I might be getting out… but you want me to come live with you? Won’t you get heat from the club?”  
“I’m the President. Who I live with is none of their concern.” A shrug of his broad shoulders assures Juice that he honestly doesn’t care.  
  
A conflict of emotions follows one another in quick succession on his face. Reality dawns on Juice.  
He might be getting out.  
Not only that, Chibs wants him back. Chibs. Back all the way into his life, _his home._  
  
Juice’s heart stutters. He’s ecstatic… but then immediately there’s this falling, spinning-down feeling.  
_Tully. What am I going to… How can I… I have to tell Tully._  
Getting out also means leaving Tully behind. After everything he’s done for him…  
  
_“_ Juicy?”   
“Yeah? Sorry. Got lost a sec.”  
Chibs draws him close by the front of his shirt, face scrunched up in worry. “You hold on until we can get this sorted, ya hear me lad?”  
His tone brooks no argument. “I will. Don’t worry. I’m protected in here.”   
“Aye. Tully. I know.”  The last word is dragged out for emphasis. Chibs’ jaw tenses.  
“Chibs, it’s not what-“   
  
Filip doesn’t want to think about it. What Juice has been through. What he’s had to do to survive. He can’t bear that right now.  
“Ye do what ye need to do, Juicy. To survive in here.” His breath tickles Juice’s ear as he grazes his cheek with his own.  
“But when we get ye out- yer mine, Juicy. I… I love ye,“ his voice declares in carefully spaced words, eyes never leaving his love’s fixed stare.  
  
It’s sweet and smooth to Juice, to kiss the lips that have just told him he loves him. Just like syrup on warm pancakes. Like syrup the color of Filip’s eyes.  
He nudges his tongue against Chibs’ plump lips… his whiskers tickling his chin. Juice pushes him back onto the mattress, his knee moving to part his thighs.  
The heavy lashes that shadow Filip’s cheeks fly up when Juice undoes his fly.  
  
“I love you, Chibs. I never stopped. Fake papers or not, it’s you. It’s always been you. You’re my soul mate.”   
Juice studies him with such naked longing, eyes so wide they’re nearly obsidian black.  
An explosion is building up inside Filip.  
“Oh lad. You’re breakin’ my fuckin’ heart, Jesus Christ.”   
Chibs is fully aware of the hardness now pressing into his hip, and of the softness of lips sucking into his clavicle.  
There’s no measure for how much he’s missed this. For how much he loves his lad.  
Juice’s hand roving over the front of his leg is torture, down and up and back again, passing just within an inch of his swollen cock.  
“Oh Christ Juicy, I dinnae wanna do this here. And you've got a fever.”  
Juice chuckles, an impish grin on his face as he free’s Chibs’ member. _Jesus… it’s been how long since they last?_  
“What do you want to do, baby? Play Scrabble for the next 5 hours? And you bet I've got a fever. A certain Scottish strain... ”  
  
-  
  
Sitting with his chin perched on his knees, Tully has read the same paragraph repeatedly for the past ten minutes. Heavy hearted, he decides it’s useless and throws the book to the side with a flick of a wrist. It catches on the corner and rests open like a scream.  
  
There’s an almost imperceptible note of pleading on his grief-stricken face. Grief has hollowed him out, made his shoulders hunch.  
Juice is still in conjugal. Juice is…  
Ron looks up to the ceiling thoughtfully, the brutal neon light burning into his retinas.  
What happens when you’re in too deep to break? he asks himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter for all you Chibs/Juice stans. (Which I am one of).  
> I apologize for Tully... we have one more chapter to go then I promise I'll write a fic where Juice and Ron get a happy ending without all this angst. Because I adore them as a couple as well. 
> 
> I'm going through HORRIBLE writer's block so please be lenient if this isn't at my usual level. I'm getting my mojo back.


	3. Half Glow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juice and Tully have a heart-to-heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not going to lie, this one was an emotional chapter for me to write. I hope I did them justice.

There’s a half glow in here, Juice decides. The lights are always at half-glow and yet it still feels like they’re burning his retinas. It’s something he’ll never get used to.  
Juice exhales, tongue teasing the skin of his lower lip. The hiss of neon fills the gaps between his jagged breaths and it causes a loop reaction that his control-obsessed mind immediately notices.  
  
Hiss.  
Gulp.    
Crackle and back to hiss and FUCK! It’s maddening, this low sizzle. It reminds him of the sound of bacon cooking on greasy diner grills.  
This is the sound of his brain being fried.  
  
_  
  
Juice blinks against the rude intensity of the glare and when he closes his eyes, the outline of the waffled bulbs blazes behind his lids before fading into nothing.  
Jesus… even the lights in prison are caged, he thinks.

Everything is more pronounced this time around and he doesn’t get why. The sounds… the illumination. Maybe he’s getting one of his headaches. He’d reach up and rub the throbbing ligature from around his forehead but that would take too much effort.  
 _The smell. It’s almost pungent…_  
  
He hears a voice and swallows in reflex, throat dry.  
“Tully…  _Ron_ … ” It’s almost a lament from somewhere in the back of his gullet.

Juice’s hands twitch involuntarily as he clenches and unclenches his fist. The pilled cotton bunches slightly and twists around his index and middle fingers, his other hand splayed and digging into his strong thigh to keep himself rooted.  
This is all so familiar and yet now feels so distant.  
Chest constricted and his pulse racing, Juice draws in a deep pec-inflating inhalation all the same.    
It’s hiccupy and his nostrils widen to get more air, but only for a second. Instinctually pinching shut in disgust a moment later, he decides that the reek of this place will never leave him.

-

Ron bends backwards, his midnight eyes filling with shifting stars. What’s left of his vision field, directed heavenward, is gloomily colored with memories… and desire.  
  
“You feel so good, Juice… so good,” he sibilates, pinching his upper lip between his teeth. Coffee-colored skin glistens in sweat beneath him, dressing a lithe, muscled form that offers no resistance. Instead, it bucks back into his thrusts.  
“You feel good, too, baby… so good” is the reply uttered softly into a worn pillowcase.  
  
Drops of moisture cling to Ron’s forehead, shiny against the incandescent lamplight. It’s so fucking hot in this tiny room and their body heat keeps rising. The slippery sheen is making it hard to exact control and so Ron grabs onto the back of a pant leg to steady and fix his position. Letting a foot drop to the floor helps, and with easy pumps his cock slides in and out of the warmth beneath, steadily increasing in pace.  
  
 _This feels right and then it doesn’t… this feels right and yet… it doesn’t.  
Something is off. _

  
Teeth gritting, Ron grunts in frustration. Perspiration beads and drops like tears to the mutely stained sheet barely covering the cot. Fuck, maybe they _are_ tears, he doesn’t know if he’s crying or not.  
Too lost in getting lost.  
Too lost in trying to feel so he _doesn’t_ have to feel.  
Grief has been his bedfellow. Grief has hollowed him out.  Ron Tully is attempting unsuccessfully to fuck his heartache away.

-

Juice can’t relax. Dammit! It’s not like he hasn’t been here, hasn’t done this before. What the hell is wrong with him?!  
And yet everything in him resists. Where deep breathing fails him, he shutters his eyes against the scene. Maybe the  _nothing_  will help. Maybe inking out the crackle above him and the distant sound of mechanical doors sliding open and shut… maybe tuning out the fucking shouts… perhaps it will help him forget that he’s…  
“You’re someplace else,” his inner reason reassures. “You’re safe, you’re safe, just relax…nothing can hurt you.”    
  
-  
He’s close. So fucking close. Ron chases the orgasm at full throttle.  
 _Fuck yeah. There it is._  
Heat.  
Slick.  
Clench.  
Static drowns the fucking warning bells going off in Ron’s brain but it isn’t loud enough to quiet the voice that keeps whispering harshly “He doesn’t love you.”

He can do this. Almost there. Ron can feel it.   
His knees bear the burden of weight and the shitty mattress below gives, sliding off center to the side wall.  
There’s only the smack of moist skin now, harmonizing with loud groans and the sizzle… of course there’s the sizzle and the hum.  
  
“Fuck! I’m cumming… harder, baby, HARDER!” A beg from beyond the orange flame of Ron’s climbing peak, its tone edged with enough thirst to coax, pushes Ron hurtling into the light. When he feels the stiff jerk of ejac together with the tightening pulsations over his shaft, he lets go.  
“Fuck fuck FUCK!” Tully screams. He stills a second later and gasps, his cum spilling into the condom with shocking potency.  
Jesus how long had it been since he came last?!  
_

  
Forgetting himself, his mouth tips down, lips red as radishes flickering over the cinnamon skin with urgency. Ron’s tongue licks into the tender spot beneath the ear. It’s the place that makes Juice’s skin prickle as soon as he’s touched.  
  
 _Bitterness._  
Sour?!  
No. Wait. Something’s wrong.  
  
Ron pulls away, pulls his dick out. Pushes his shoulder blades against the cold cement wall, still panting from the previous effort with a gaping mouth.  
Tully’s taste buds AND his thoughts turn acrid with gall and suddenly his lungs burn, too. A gaze blacker than a raven’s wings takes in just enough to remind him of what he’d prayed he could forget.  
  
_  
  
“That was fucking amazing… amazing… holy shit!”  
Tully blinks and his heart sinks to the floor as slowly as seeping syrup. "I feel hollow,” is what he wants to say, but he doesn’t bother. What difference would it make? Who would care?  
  
The man next to him rolls over and hikes up his pants with two tugs of his left hand, his semen-encrusted six pack straining as he adjusts himself on the mattress. Facing Ron, he studies him with shiny cocoa eyes and a puzzled strain to the forehead.  
Tully’s attention loses focus and withers into a vague unseeing stillness.  
  
“Ron, you okay?” A hand hovers, wants to reach over, offer Tully a kind touch… but something hostile in the other’s mannerism stops him.  
Tully watches his lover fumble with his shirt and the more differences he notices, the more the sick creeps up his throat.  
The reply is flat. “I’m fine. Just get dressed and go.”  
Tully’s head drops to a right angle, making him look lopsided. A tired sigh accompanies his shoulder drop.  
  
Oh how the emptiness and the darkness and the shadow just lurk, he muses. So easily they creep back in as soon as the orgasm fades! The memories, the possibilities that will never be… they’re talons shredding him to bits from the inside, day in and day out. Prison isn’t retribution for the pain he’s caused.  
 _This is._  
_  
  
Smoothing down the hem of his ill-fitting uniform, the gesture doesn’t help to ease the sudden anxiety snagging a hold inside the other man’s chest. Any previous enthusiasm he felt has been clipped.  
“Ron, why do you keep calling me Juice?”   
  
It’s a legitimate question. It’s just an impossibly foolish and poorly timed one.  
  
The nickname falling from the stranger’s lips snaps Ron back into the present.  “I mean I know you said it was part of the deal but you never said why and Jesus this guy must have been quite the fuck if you-“

The bitch slap rings in both their ears before even the suddenness of the gesture is registered. Ron immediately regrets it but his anger will not be placated so easily.  
“You don’t talk about him like that, _Mateo Figueroa_. Do you hear me?!”  
The spat words are laced with Tully’s fury. “Don’t get yourself confused about what’s going on here. About what your place is. This is _transactional_ ,” he continues.  
  
Mateo rubs his jaw. He speaks but huffs out a shaky cough first.  
“Okay papì, okay. Damn, I got it.” The reproachful look on Tully’s face stings more than the hit. “Lesson learned,” he says under his breath, arms raised in surrender.  
  
Ron recomposes himself, taking his time. A mental broom sweeps thoughts of Juice to the four corners of his mind. That’s not something he wants to unwrap right now.  
He puts his cock away, disposing of the condom in the toilet. When he’s fully clothed, he beckons Mateo to stand.  
  
Toe to toe with the other inmate, whose heart pounds and limbs tremble as he faces Ron from just a few inches of space… Tully’s voice is barely a whisper. Scarier than his shout earlier.  
A twitch to his strong features is the only tell of how upset he really is.  
  
“Just so we avoid further… misunderstandings. Because I don’t like to get… _physical_ unless it’s necessary. You see, I’m more a lover than a fighter.” A smirk twists up the corners of his mouth. Ron’s finger traces a languid line from Mateo’s reddened cheek down to the hollow of his golden throat.  
Mateo follows it with his gaze and when the nail of Tully’s index finger scratches in lightly, his instinct is to recoil. Instead, he locks his shoulders in and stands his ground. Ron doesn’t respect crybaby bitches and Mateo will be damned if he passes for one.  
  
Tully tilts his head and smiles faintly. “Understand, baby, that there are just some things that are off limits. You and I are in a business agreement. You asked for my protection because your status with your MC is… well… precarious. I’m happy to oblige. In exchange you pay me in favors and fucks. It’s a win-win. But here’s the thing… “  
A Tic Tac could fit between them, but not much more.  
“When we’re fucking, I’ll call you Juice or Santa Claus or Mickey Mouse. What I call you, Mateo, is my business. Do you understand? What I’m trying to get across here is you never mention or ask about Juice again. Are we clear?”

The only thing Mateo can do is nod. There’s a flash of emotion, brief, that flitters across Ron’s face when he recognizes something in the boy… something to the pout of his lips and the way his long lashes curl externally, as if they were brushed like that. Just like Juice’s.  
It’s a moment, though, and then it’s gone. Tully’s bored and empty and the young man’s invited out with a wave of a hand.  
“I’ll see you later, sweetheart,” is the last thing he promises him.  
When Mateo sneaks a peek over his shoulder from the hallway, Ron’s already getting his things together. He opens his mouth to speak but thinks better of it. There’s nothing he could say in this situation that would actually better his position so lets himself be led out.  
  
The walk back to his cell is uncomfortable. He’s not sure if the renewed hard on in his pants is from fear… or arousal. Maybe a bit of both.  
Ron Tully is nothing if not intimidating. But then again, Mateo has always had a Daddy complex, a flavor for the forbidden… and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he’s a sucker for corporal punishment.

-

“Juan Carlos Ortiz, didn’t think we’d be seeing you here so soon.”  
Juice recognizes the voice without even looking up. It’s Waters. Same laissez-faire tone, just kinder. What’s he doing working the desk? Juice asks himself.  
“Officer Waters. I’m, um… I’m… visiting someone. I’ve actually been waiting for a while… ”  
  
The voice trailing off and the darting gaze are obvious signs that Juice doesn’t want to be here. Seeing Waters, all the sensory overload of having to cross the threshold and sit in the waiting room like this….the past 45 minutes have been torture. Most of the visitors have come and gone and now he’s wondering did he just have an hour-long panic attack for nothing?!  
Did he puke in the parking lot so they could tell him they _aren’t_ going to let him see Ron?!  
  
The sound of a clipboard dropping onto the counter startles him. “Tully. I know. You’ll get to see him but the delay was caused because he was being moved from another wing where he had some… business to attend to.”  
Waters coughs and his simper doesn’t go unnoticed. Ice coats Juice’s skin and the space is suddenly stifling, as if the walls have shifted closer.  
  
 _Business to attend to…_ Juice knows what that means. He’s found a replacement. How long did it take him?! The logical part of him knows he shouldn’t be jealous. He has no right. And why shouldn’t Ron have someone… why shouldn’t Ron be satisfied?  
  
 _Shit._ If Juice could scream at the top of his lungs he would. Waters is saying something and for all he knows he could be speaking Thai.  
Juice should **not** care. He shouldn’t.  
You shouldn’t, right? his brain screams. I’ve got Filip and I’m happy, he repeats to himself.  I’ve got Filip and I’m happy.  
  
So why does it feel like a thousand pricks of panic are needling his soul if he thinks about Ron inside another?!  
  
Waters looks around to be sure no one hears him. “Tully immediately bought a safe room when he found out it was you. I guess he wants you both to catch up… in private. Follow me.”

-

“Juan Carlos.”  
Ron’s voice is a monotone but within he’s anything but calm. His atrophied heart suddenly skitters as soon as Juice enters. His eyes greedily eat up the view of Juice Ortiz who shamelessly fills out his tight clothing like some model for a tat mag.  
Tully’s arms feel light. They’re empty and desolate without his love’s body in their embrace so they just hang there limp until he lifts them, not without some difficulty, so that his restless fingers can busy themselves. They twitch and pick at the scratched-up steel table to which he’s supposed to be tethered, but isn’t.  
This is what money can buy you. A protected room and a goodbye.

Just like that they’re face to face. Juice slides in, his gaze trying to penetrate through the mist. Seeing Ron brings back so many feelings and shit if he can’t feel the sting of tears pooling. He promised himself he wasn't going to.   
Juice was always an easy crier.  
  
“You look good, Juice.”  
Tully means it. He does. He’s gained a couple pounds and the suppleness to his skin is born only of relaxation and rest. Ron is glad that he’s happy. That’s a wonderful thing. Juice deserves that.  
“I take it things are good at home.”  
There’s a quake to Ron’s voice when he says “home.” Just a slight trip and probably no one else would pick up on it, but Juice does. The affection in his ex-lover’s bent gaze is quickly veiled so Juice can’t see the pain welling alongside the tears.  
  
Jesus Christ. Juice is begging his mind not to go back to the last time he was in one of these rooms and people wept.  
Jax sitting where he’s sitting now. Juice sitting where Ron’s sitting. What are they playing here? Musical chairs of despair?!  
   
No, he can’t think about that. He can’t give room to the tragedy that caused all this. This isn’t why he came here.  
  
A nervous smile breaks on Juice’s face. He sets his shoulders ruler-straight and sniffles. When he notices Tully studying him from under lids cast downward, almost without realizing he’s done it, he moves his hand slowly across the table to his.  
  
It’s warm. Familiar. Tully allows the touch because goddamn...   
  
“Ron,” is all he can muster without the rest of what he wants to say risking to spill from his mouth like dribbled water.  
 _Breathe, Juice. Breathe._  
Ron wants to reassure him. The kid reeks of anxiety… and spice. God he missed his scent.   
He places his enormous left hand over Juice’s, making it all but disappear. If this is all he gets, if this is his equivalent of a last meal with Ortiz... well then Tully’ll die a content man.    
  
“Things are good, Ron. Really good.” He sighs and Tully nods.  
Juice spares him the visuals of a fire pit and citronella candles. Of the glow of flames lighting up Chibs’ smiling face as he cooks over the crackling heat.    
It’d be an offense to tell him how good charred hot dogs taste as a free man, smothered in ketchup and washed down with beer whose cold condensation leaves your palm wet and pink. How easy laughter is once you’ve left these gates behind, as you kiss away the beer froth from your soulmate’s whiskers under the moonlight.  
No, he can’t do that to Tully.  
  
“How are you doing?"   
Jesus Juice, his inner adult scolds. How do you think he's doing?!   
"I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. There was a lot of legal stuff… and my settling in. I couldn’t think to come back here, but it was harder to think we never got to say goodbye. I had to. At the end I had to.”  
  
Obligation or desire?   
“Is this what this is, Juan Carlos? A goodbye?” Ron knows it is. The icy spear splitting him in two from throat to stomach tells him so. He probably will never see Juice after today and that hurts more than not being able to love him. But who wants to love if you have to steal him from another. (Not that he’d stand a chance and that is also another painful reality Ron’s accepted).  
  
“Ron…” Juice shuts his eyes, the fucking light etching memories into the backs of his lids. It’s worse than he thought, worse than he’d imagined when he was drowning in his cowardice in the waiting room. The object of his deepest contemplation and most recent affection is sitting right here, holding his hands, and there’s nothing he can do to stop the flood of unbidden images and emotions.  
Nor does he want to. They deserve this. They deserve their goodbye.   
“Ron, call me Juice again. _Please_.”  
  
“I’ve missed you, _Juice_.”  
It’s been two weeks since Juice got out. It’s been two MONTHS since Ron’s seen Juice.  
Shortly after Chibs left, Juice’s lawyer got him put in protective custody. That was that. Tully’s arms were long but they couldn’t reach into that wing. Juice sat rotting there for eight weeks among the pedophiles and the rapists, wondering if he would ever get out. Wondering what Ron was doing and thinking and… until today it didn’t even dawn on him to think about _who_ he might be doing.  
Does it matter? Should it?  
What right do I have? he questions. What right?!  
  
“I’ve missed you, too, Ron. I really did. I thought about you when they took me away and I couldn’t see you. I was hoping you’d be able to wrangle something but… “  
“No,” Tully interrupts. Almost too brusquely. “Unfortunately no. There was a special hold put on you. Then a guard change. Not even my reach went that far. I made sure to at least keep tabs on you. Just to be sure you were safe in there. I was always worried about you, sweetheart.”  
  
Juice’s dimples appear, as if someone has squeezed his cheeks. He blushes easily, too. “You always took care of me, Ron. Even when we weren’t together.”   
  
The words just sit there a moment between them. Anywhere else, in front of anyone else, Tully would swallow down this shit and lock it away so deep even he’d forget he ever felt this.  
But not here and not with Juice’s round eyes looking at him so beseechingly. Ron looks away blindly, wiping with his thumb what he would never admit outside of the room are a real man's tears.  
  
Juice leans in, clasps a curled hand over Tully’s sleeve to pull him nearer.  
“Ron… I loved you. In my own way, but I loved you. Not like I love Chibs and the only reason I mention it is because you’re not stupid. You know who Chibs is for me. But I need you to know this: I loved you. I’ll always be grateful for what you did for me, for what we had. I’ll always care for you _so much._ ”  
  
His voice cracks on “much” and Tully thinks if there’s a god he’ll let us be together one day. Maybe not in this one, but in another lifetime. Because the last thing he expected was to fall for a Puerto Rican biker in fucking Stockton prison. And now what?! He's supposed to lose himself in meaningless sex with Mateo?  
  
“Please believe that. Ron. Ron?”  
Ron’s been wordlessly staring. Soaking him up. Taking in every minute detail for posterity.  
It’s almost "time’s up" and he still hasn’t… he needs to...   
  
“You’re hard to wish away, Juan Carlos Ortiz. God knows I tried.” Tully says it like a prayer, slowly and with convinction. Juice’s heart turns over in response. He blinks and squeezes Ron’s bicep and a perfectly round pregnant tear drops from the river along his nose onto the table with a plop. They both fixate it briefly and Juice is scrambling to put his words together…order them in a way they don’t sound stupid.  
Except Ron doesn’t let him say anything.  
  
Tully makes to stand. He can feel the floor vibrate from the gate opening down the hall and he knows Waters is just a minute away and so he gets up, crosses the room on a diagonal and places himself directly in front of his love.  
He’s calm now. Peaceful in an almost unsettling way.  
  
Large hands lovingly test the fabric of Juice’s collar and then they wrap around his neck. An exhale pulls Juice close to Ron. He lets him, even kneading into the coiled muscles of Tully’s back.  
  
“I loved you so gently, so quietly, Juice, I almost didn’t notice the feeling of it. Until I did. Until I did.”  
Ron whispers his truth before kissing Juice one last time on his left cheek.

Juice flounders before the beauty of this confession. Jesus… what… what can he say to that?! His lips move and his breath is a stutter and yet nothing is coming out but hot air. Fuck!! Time's running out and...   
Ron is overcome. Wills himself to step away because otherwise he'll never let Juice go and then he’ll get tasered.  
  
Arms are empty again.  
Souls wring.    
“Take care of yourself, sweetheart,” Ron asks of him, half-turned. The lock turns and the seconds are a handful now. Something in Juice breaks and he’s about to sprint to the door like a mad man when Tully’s voice makes him falter for the last time.  
“You leave now and forget about me. Forget about this place. Live your life, Juice. Be happy. Live this wonderful second life you’ve been given and let Telford make you the most blessed man alive. Promise me.”  
  
Eyes locked, squeezing the last of his tears from between swollen eyelids, Juice nods in agreement.  
  
_

On his way back home, he has to stop three times. He can’t drive his bike for the sobbing. He doesn’t want Filip to see him cry.  
“Until I did…” is an echo in his mind. He’ll never forget this. He’ll never forget Ron despite what he’d asked of him.  
 _I loved you so gently, so quietly, Juice, I almost didn’t notice the feeling of it. Until I did._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took forever to update. Life happened. But I appreciate your patience and support as always. <3 If you liked it please leave a comment, we writers live for this shit. :)  
> As promised I will birth another story with a happy ending for our Juice and Tully. (Pun intended hehe).  
> Jokes aside a tumblr prompt helped me to forge this idea and now that it’s concluded I can start work on other projects.


	4. Forgive My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Don't know why you haunt me .... But you do   
> Forgive my heart... I'm still in love with you"  
> It’s been a few months since Juice watched Tully disappear through the visiting room door, probably never to be seen again. Chibs and Juice are happy, living together in domestic bliss outside of Charming. Tully knows this... it's all too painfully apparent. His nightmares of dying alone, shanked in some prison shower or boiler room haunt him and serve as a stark reminder of how precarious his situation truly is.    
> There’s an urgency within, pressing him for closure, which sets Tully to tell Juice everything his heart has been hiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a moment of inspiration this morning. I felt Ron needed some closure, this fic somehow felt incomplete.

Tully's shoulders are slumped, the pen slipping from his fingers because they're moist from constantly wiping his fucking tears.   
He bought the room. He needs to do this in peace and if it means crying over a goddamn piece of yellow legal paper as he pours his fucking heart out to Juan Carlos Ortiz, so be it.   
At least there aren't half a dozen skinheads just waiting to spill this shit back through the prison grapevine.   
Ron Tully- boricua fucker, soft to the brand, and traitor to his kind.   
No, that's the last thing he needs.   
  
The words are swimming less. He blinks back what he hopes is the last of this wave of salty scaldy prickling behind his eyelids.   
He takes a deep breath and signs his name.   
  
It's done. It looks like a 3rd grader wrote it because his hands are shaking so much - but there's not enough time to rewrite it. He hates sending it out like this but Tully doesn't have a choice. Maybe it will lend to his desperation? Set the mood for this soul vomit he's now folding into threes.  
  
  
 _Dearest Juice,_

 

 _I know I asked something of you the last time we saw each other: I asked that you be happy and never look back. And that's exactly what I hope you're doing. I pray this finds you so far from this place in memory and flesh_ _that even I no longer exist for you._  
 _Which is why I'm asking your forgiveness. Forgive my heart, that it cannot rest. Forgive this letter._  
 _I pray receiving these scrawled sheets full of ink smears and dried tear drops won't break some equilibrium you've constructed- that it won't tear asunder the wall we've both built in order to be able to move forward. I, perhaps, with more difficulty than you.  
_  
 _That's the thing- the reason why I need to write you this letter. There were some things I had to tell you that day, Juice, that last day you came to visit me and it took all_  
 _my strength not to kiss you goodbye- not to do something stupid and fall on the guard's taser so I wouldn't have to see your face disappear behind the concrete and glass. Out of my sight and out of my life forever._  
  
 _I've had a lot of time to think since then. I've come to the conclusion that the true definition of love is not desire for happiness of self, but for the one for whom your heart beats._  
 _Sometimes, that means sacrificing your heart for their benefit._  
 _Even if in some fucked up version of what became "us" you'd have loved me, and by that I mean TRULY loved me like I loved you.. and I'd have wanted us to have a future in eternity... deep down a part of me knew the path we were travelling was not the road you were meant to ride._  
 _You had a different map to track. With Chibs._  
 _Jax had a different map to track. WIth Mr. Mayhem.  
_ _And I'm still stuck in here for the forseeable future._ _Calling shots and looking mean._  
  
 _I was never destined to be the one for you, Juice. I only got the privilege of being able to love you for a blink._  
  
 _Some decisions are life and death, and I chose death. The death of my heart so your life would be one of happiness._  
 _My smiles now are just a pretense to the actuality that is tearing me apart inside: I'm alone in here. And whether in a boiler room, or in the middle of the fucking cafeteria, or in my own bed one day somewhere in a shitty apartment in Northern California- I'm going to die alone._  
 _I deserve it for what I've done in my life. For what I did to your kind at times just out of survival instinct._  
  
 _Most days I can hardly find the will to function without crumbling under the loss of the one that held me together those last months: you._  
  
 _My scars still bleed pain. My heart cries regret. My mind still reminiscences on the memories we shared- the good ones. The ones at the end._  
  
 _I ask myself if I knew love would hurt me this much, would I still have fallen this deeply for you? No matter how much the anguish forces tears from my eyes when the lights get snuffed out and I hug my fucking pillow to my chest and silently scream, the answer remains the same; yes._  
  
 _In every lifetime I’d find you, I'd choose you, Juice. And if in each one circumstances required me to put myself aside so you could find true happiness, that’s exactly what I’d do._  
  
 _My love for you was accidental. Not rooted in selfish gain or satisfaction of self. Not once you started to love me back, and I couldn't believe that you did... in your own way, I know. But you did, then my_ _feelings for you held out such a strong longing. I only wanted one thing: to give you the best this shitty prison world had to offer, to make sure you made it out safe and sound._  
  
 _If the reality of that now is to watch you love another, leave with another…then I’d told myself I'd be strong enough for the both of us. I’d bear the pain. I’d embrace the hurt. I’d smile even when I’m slowly dying inside._  
  
 _It’s not that it’s easy, or life continues as if you were never here. Fuck no. You left your mark and it was indelible. …_  
  
 _The truth is, I haven’t moved on since you left. The sand stopped dripping the day I lost you. I see you in a hundred purchased orgasms and it makes me sick to my stomach and hate myself so much I can barely look in the mirror anymore._  
  
 _I’m frozen, stuck in limbo, floating in the darkness as I wither away. And that's okay. Again, it's what I deserve._  
  
 _But I smile, because I know you smile_ out there _. Ultimately, that's all that matters most._  
  
 _My pillow knows my tears, and the night hears my muffled despair. I’m falling to pieces, but I endure, because of you.  I know there’s no one better for your heart to find a home in but Chibs. I wish you found forever in mine, you can't imagine how much. But holding you captive in a relationship that didn’t cause you to smile as bright, or unlock the full capacity of your love, would make me the same as those that sought to break you at the sake of their pleasure._  
  
 _And break you I never would. I'd sooner take a blade to my throat._  
  
 _So letting you go may kill me, my sweet Juice, but what sweeter death is there than one by love? My heart may be torn, and your ‘happily ever after’ may no longer be beside me… But know this, you will always be the love of my life, and my heart will always beat for you._  
  
 _I may have lost you in reality, but you’re the forever in all my dreams._  
  
 _Eternally yours,_  
 _Ron  
  
  
  
_ Tearing the glue strip from the back, Tully seals the envelope, flattening it out with anxious pats. The guard's tapping his foot, and Ron's smirking face glides up from there to his face.   
"In a hurry? Got a hot date?" Ron quips.   
"That letter ready, Prince Charming?" Waters grabs it from him, cracking his gum.   
  
A melancholy frown flits across Ron's stern features. His fists clench and release.    
"Officer Waters," his mouth twists into a threat, "one day I will get out of here. And we'll meet by chance in some supermarket parking lot. And I'll remind you of every single time you've pissed me off."  
  
"Maybe so, Tully," Waters hooks onto his taser. "Maybe so."  
With an expression that grows hard and resentful with each word, he replies, "But today, you're the prisoner and I'm the guard. So get your Nazi ass back to your cell before I write you up a shot."   
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not crying, you're crying!

**Author's Note:**

> Various references. "Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance. "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark" by Fall Out Boy.  
> The poem at the beginning is :  
> “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-” John Keats 
> 
> I'm a sucker for this pairing, what can I say?


End file.
